A Forum for Orthodox Jewish thought on Halacha, Hashkafa, and the social issues of our time.

Monday, July 02, 2012

Secular Jews - Contempt versus Gratitude

An article by Jonathan Rosenblum published in the Yated (re-published
on Cross-Currents last Thursday) laments the fact that Charedim get so much bad
press in the secular media. But as is often the case with Jonathan he has made an
honest analysis about why that is.

He says that part of the problem is bad PR. The Charedi community
does a terrible job in promoting the good things it does. I think that’s right.
He goes on to describe many of the Chesed organizations founded by Charedim
that cater to the entire Jewish community regardless of how religious they are. To
the best of my knowledge these organizations have virtually no counterparts in
any other segment of Orthodoxy. Just to
mention a few examples of these Charedi Chesed organizations in Israel from his
article:

Chareidim founded many of Israel’s largest volunteer
organizations, which serve the entire population: Yad Sarah, the country’s
biggest volunteer organization; Ezer M’Tzion, which maintains, inter alia, the
largest Jewish blood registry in the world; Ezra L’Marpeh, a world class
medical referral service, directed by Rabbi Avraham Elimelech Firer; Zaka;
Chesed v’Zimra, founded by the grandson of Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, shlita,
which brings a little bit of music and joy to those confined to mental
instititutions; and a host of organizations serving childhood cancer patients
and their families.

But then he mentions what I think is the far greater problem.
These are the kinds of things I regularly deal with. But rather than paraphrase,
I will let Jonathan do the talking:

(T)here are other instances where we are sending the wrong
message. A recent staple of Israeli journalism has been to send crews to Bnei
Brak to interview residents on the Tal Law. They have invariably returned with
full reels of chareidim expressing their contempt for the army.

That is wrong tactically, and more fundamentally, it is a
failure of hakaros hatov. As Rav Hutner points out, few failures in middos
are more self-destructive than a failure of hakaros hatov. Perhaps the
habit of speaking as if the IDF has nothing to do with Israel’s security and
chareidi Torah learning would alone suffice derives from a fear that glorifying
the IDF will make army service more tempting for yeshiva students.

But if we want the secular population to respect our Torah
learning, we must also learn to honor the tremendous mesiras nefesh (sacrifice)of
so many young, and not so young Israelis, in defense of the six million Jews
living in Israel, and that of parents who send their children into the IDF,
only to spend the next three years experiencing a moment of apprehension every
time the phone rings.

In truth, it is asking more from the secular population to
respect the contribution of our Torah learning to the defense of the state than
it is asking us to appreciate the sacrifices made by soldiers on our behalf.
The Divine protection that results from limud HaTorah cannot be
empirically demonstrated to those who as yet lack belief.

But we know from the Torah itself that an army is also a
necessary component of national defense. At the beginning of parashas
Mattos, we read three times “a thousand from each Tribe.” The Midrash explains
the threefold repetition as referring to three different groups of one thousand
from each Tribe – one thousand to fight in the battles, one thousand to form
the rearguard and guard the supplies, and one thousand to pray. Each group was
an indispensable part of a successful Jewish army.

A third aspect of a strategy to change our public image
would be to more forcefully separate ourselves from those who resort to
violence, and to make clear to the Israeli public why we reject their actions
on Torah grounds. The zealots l’mineihem do us a double damage. As
Rav Shach said many years ago, any time one elevates any aspect of the Torah
above all others, he will inevitably distort the Torah. And we see where the
anti-Zionism of the Sikrikim leads them to.

They have lost all concern with the image of Torah in the
world. And their apparent obliviousness to the impact of their actions reflects
a non-Torah belief that they alone can bring Mashiach and Mashiach will come to
them alone. They have lost the connection to Klal Yisrael described above,
which characterizes much of the chareidi community.

Second, the zealots add to the terror with which the general
Israeli society views the growing chareidi population. For they convey the
message that there can be no shared public space: Wherever we are the majority,
we will seek to impose our norms at every opportunity. If we do not want the
general population to view us with fear, and as a consequence act to limit the
growth of the chareidi population, we must make clear our rejection of violence
and our awareness that there are rules of mutual accommodation, without which a
diverse population cannot exist without constant strife.

As we look forward to an uncertain future, our focus must,
of course, be on making ourselves worthy of Hashem’s continued sustenance to
the citadels of Torah – through our limud HaTorah, tefillos, and ma’asim
tovim. But, at the same time, we should not lose sight of the practical steps
that constitute our hishtadlus.

If any of this sounds familiar, it should. I have said very
similar things countless numbers of times.
And I have been called a Charedi basher for doing so. On virtually every
one of these issues where I have expressed an opinion, there are certain
Charedim who have no problem batting it down as though I didn’t know what I was
talking about at best - or that I hate Charedim and find every opportunity to
bash them.

The problems that
this community has to deal with will not entirely go away if they change
their public attitude on these issues. There is still the problem of getting the
kind of education that will enable them
to get better jobs. There is still the problem of all men being pressured to stay
in the Beis HaMedrash full time for as long as possible. There is still the problem of resisting army or national service and a few other problems that will
not be solved by a change in attitude. But it will go a long way toward better understanding
between secular and religious Jews if religious Jews do as Jonathan suggests in
his article.

I salute Jonathan for having the courage to write these
words and to publish them in the Yated. I
wonder what the response of the readership will be.

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About Me

My outlook on Judaism is based mostly on the teachings of my primary Rebbe, Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik from whom I received my rabbinic ordination. It is also based on a search for spiritual truth. Among the various sources that put me on the right path, two great philosophic works stand out: “Halakhic Man” and “Lonely Man of Faith” authored by the pre-eminent Jewish philosopher and theologian, Rabbi, Dr. Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Of great significance is Rabbi, Dr. Norman Lamm's conceptualization and models of Torah U’Mada and Dr. Eliezer Berkovits who introduced me to the world of philosophic thought. Among my early influences were two pioneers of American Elementary Torah Chinuch, Rabbis Shmuel Kaufman and Yaakov Levi. The Yeshivos I attended were Yeshivas Telshe for early high school and more significantly, the Hebrew Theological College where for a period of ten years, my Rebbeim included such great Rabbinic figures as Rabbis Mordechai Rogov, Shmaryahu Meltzer, Yaakov Perlow, Herzl Kaplan, and Selig Starr. I also attended Roosevelt University where I received my Bachelor's Degree - majoring in Psychology.